Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, to the House. I commend Senator Barrett on introducing this Private Members' Bill which gives us the opportunity to debate third level education generally. Senator Quinn referred to a very apposite quote from Senator Barrett as to the core purpose of a university, which I fully endorse and commend. That is very welcome and sets a nice context for this debate.

I have been seeking a debate for some time on different aspects of third level education, as have other colleagues of mine. A particular issue I wanted to raise - I will raise it directly with the Minister, as a matter on the Commencement in future weeks - is the issue of gender equality at third level, particularly in light of the recent successful case taken by Dr. Micheline Sheehy Skeffington against NUI Galway, which has been raised in the House on many occasions by me and others. The case raises more general issues about gender discrimination in recruitment and promotion procedures. I may come back to that one on a future date.

To return to the specifics of this Bill, I commend Senator Barrett on raising some important issues within it and welcome the Minister's statement that she will give strong consideration to incorporating aspects of it into the higher education reform Bill which the Department will publish later this year. In particular, the Minister referred to definitions. I support those provisions of the Bill, particularly section 2(2) and sections 3 and 4, which insert definitions into the 1997 Act in regard to research, innovation and education and provide, for example, for references to innovation to be made in the objects and functions of universities. There is strong merit to those proposals and I am delighted to hear the Minister say she will support them.

On the question of staffing, the Minister has said, in regard to section 7 that she will give consideration to including an amendment along the lines of the provision in section 7(3) in her higher education reform Bill. I welcome that. As Senator Norris said, it reflects the collegiate and constructive spirit in which we debate Private Members' Bills, in particular, in this House. I believe that what Senator Barrett is doing with this Bill is seeking to have a constructive input into the Government's overall reform programme in higher education and in the third level sector. I am pleased he made particular reference to the need to ensure a career structure for researchers, for those who are not in the traditional lecturer mode, because this is a big issue. As both he and I know, in Trinity College and other universities, a career path for people engaged on research contracts is an issue. I hope we will see this addressed in the higher education reform Bill. There are also significant issues in regard to academic freedom and tenure and Senator Barrett addresses these in his Bill.

I am aware that the Minister has said, and Senator Moran said it in her speech, that she does not support some aspects of the Bill. I accept the point the Minister makes in terms of, for example, the provision that seeks to give power to set pay rates to the commission on public service appointments. Clearly, that would be outside the remit of a body that was set up to regulate recruitment into the public sector, which should not have that function. However, the spirit of the Bill is very much in keeping with the reform agenda.

I wish to speak more broadly about the reform agenda and refer to some provisions I hope will be in the higher education reform Bill. In the wake of the Hunt report, we have seen a commitment to reform and in the programme for Government we have seen an undertaking to introduce radical reform of third level institutions. We are seeing some positive consolidation. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, spoke about the need to consolidate teacher training centres, from 19 training centres to six. I hope that when that is done, we will also see the denominational basis for teacher training being addressed, because there are serious problems in that regard. Constituents have raised issues with me regarding student quotas from particular religions for teacher training colleges. Most people are aware of this issue and it is highlighted from time to time, but it needs to be addressed. The issue of the consolidation of the institutes of technology has not been without controversy, but in principle everybody supports the idea of moving towards technological university status for institutes. Another issue is the regional clusters of universities and researchers. There is also a European impetus driving us towards the cross-institutional, interdisciplinary research we do in a range of areas.

One area in which Irish third level education excels is in terms of participation rates by wide sections of the community. For example, we do extremely well in regard to the proportion of our population with third level degrees. I am glad the Government is committed to widening participation, particularly participation from disadvantaged groups and that the concentration is not just on increasing the numbers of places available generally. We should also see better representation of under represented groups. Initiatives like the Trinity Access programme and the BITE, Ballymun Initiative for Third-Level Education, programme in DCU are good examples of the positive actions that can be taken to progress this.

Other Members have spoken about the rankings issue in the context of research and it is a concern when we see universities fall in the rankings. However, there have been some positive stories in terms of our research rankings in particular areas and we should not lose sight of that. Senator Quinn spoke about the direct impact of university research on industry and there are plenty of examples of campus companies which have been innovative and led the way and have been hugely successful in areas such as IT and computer gaming. There have been recent examples of Trinity campus companies in these areas which have brought strong benefits to the economy and increased employment.

In this regard, I wish to refer to section 10 of Senator Barrett's Bill, which deals with the issue of intellectual property, IP, and the IP protocol. The Minister said the IP protocol has been established, but she is not sure it is necessary to make specific provision for the establishment for such a protocol in primary legislation, as is done in section 10. We may come back to this debate in the future and I wonder whether it would be of benefit to have a statutory provision confirming the establishment of the protocol. I understand there may be more flexibility with a protocol that is not in primary legislation, but is there more merit in the provision in section 10?

On the thorny issue of funding for the third-level sector, Senator Ó Domhnaill referred to changes in the funding structure for third level. We have seen a significant drop in the reliance of universities on direct funding from the State, which has fallen to 28% in the 2011 figures. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service has prepared an excellent report on this. This is a significant drop, but it remains the case that public funding of higher education here generally is significantly above the OECD average as a proportion of overall spending. There are different ways of looking at this issue. There is certainly indirect funding from the State, in the shape of research grants and contracts, and I welcome the Government's commitment to ensuring significant funding is available for this, through Science Foundation Ireland and other initiatives and at EU level through Horizon 2020. We have seen the proportion of university funding from research grants and contracts rise and this is welcome.

I welcome the establishment of the expert group, under Peter Cassells, which will look at the funding situation and at funding mechanisms for third level. I am on record as being against the reintroduction of student fees and would like, as most of us would, to see the removal of the student registration charge. Coming from a student politics background as I do, I am against both the loans and the fees. I favour the direct funding of third level education, albeit I recognise that more diverse forms of funding, through research grants and contracts and through overseas fees and so on, are also important sources of funding for universities.